global
An
independent film, or
indie film, is a film that is produced outside of the
Hollywood studio system, a series of oligopolistic practices by several
major American film studios (
MGM,
Paramount Pictures,
RKO,
Warner Bros. and
Twentieth Century Fox) which controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films in the
US from the early 1920s through 1950s. Though its
oligopolistic practices were officially ended by the
Paramount Decision in 1948, four of the five Golden Age majors (RKO is the exception) continue to exist as major Hollywood studio entities through 2008.
Though film production companies in other countries have at times achieved and maintained full integration in a manner similar to Hollywood's
Big Five, the Hollywood system and
style remain uniquely American in character and origin. As such, films produced outside of America are generally qualified as
foreign rather than independent.
Independent films today are generally defined as American films financed and distributed by sources outside
today's Big Six and its subsidiaries.
History
Resistance to the Edison Trust
The roots of independent film can be traced back to filmmakers in the 1900s who resisted the control of a
trust called the
Motion Picture Patents Company or "Edison Trust."
The Motion Picture Patents Company, founded in December 1908, was a trust of all the major film companies (
Edison,
Biograph,
Vitagraph,
Essanay,
Selig,
Lubin,
Kalem,
American Star,
American Pathé), the leading distributor (
George Kleine) and the biggest supplier of raw film,
Eastman Kodak.
At the time of the formation of the MPPC,
Thomas Edison owned most of the major
patents relating to motion pictures, including that for
raw film. The MPPC vigorously enforced its patents, constantly bringing
suits and receiving injunctions against independent filmmakers. Because of this, a number of filmmakers responded by building their own cameras and moving their operations to
Hollywood, California, where the distance from Edison's home base of
New Jersey made it more difficult for the MPPC to enforce its patents.
["La-La Land: The Origins" Peter Edidin. New York Times. New York, N.Y.: Aug 21, 2005. pg. 4.2. "Los Angeles's distance from New York was also comforting to independent film producers, making it easier for them to avoid being harassed or sued by the Motion Picture Patents Company, a k a the Trust, which Thomas Edison helped create in 1909."]
The Edison Trust was soon ended by two decisions of the
Supreme Court of the United States: one in 1912, which canceled the patent on raw film, and a second in 1915, which cancelled all MPPC patents. Though these decisions succeeded at legalizing independent film, they would do little to remedy the
de facto ban on small productions; the independent filmmakers who had fled to
Southern California during the enforcement of the trust had already laid the groundwork for the
studio system of
classical Hollywood cinema.
United Artists and the resistance to the studio system
The studio system quickly became so powerful that some filmmakers once again sought independence as a result. On
February 5,
1919 four of the leading figures in American
silent cinema (
Mary Pickford,
Charles Chaplin,
Douglas Fairbanks, and
D. W. Griffith) formed United Artists, the first independent studio in America. Each held a 20% stake, with the remaining 20% held by lawyer
William Gibbs McAdoo.
[Siklos, Richard (March 4, 2007). Mission Improbable: Tom Cruise as Mogul. New York Times] The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford, and cowboy star
William S. Hart a year earlier as they were traveling around the U.S. selling
Liberty bonds to help the
World War I effort. Already veterans of Hollywood, the four film
stars began to talk of forming their own company to better control their own work as well as their futures. They were spurred on by the actions of established Hollywood producers and distributors, who were making moves to tighten their control over their stars' salaries and creative license. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before things had formalized. When he heard about their scheme,
Richard A. Rowland, head of
Metro Pictures, is said to have observed, "The inmates are taking over the asylum."
The four partners, with advice from McAdoo (son-in-law and former
Treasury Secretary of then-President
Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company, with
Hiram Abrams as its first managing director. The original terms called for Pickford, Fairbanks, Griffith and Chaplin to independently produce five pictures each year, but by the time the company got under way in 1920-1921,
feature films were becoming more expensive and more polished, and running times had settled at around ninety minutes (or eight reels). It was believed that no one, no matter how popular, could produce and star in five quality feature films a year. By 1924, Griffith had dropped out and the company was facing a crisis: either bring in others to help support a costly distribution system or concede defeat. The veteran producer
Joseph Schenck was hired as president. Not only had he been producing pictures for a decade, but he brought along commitments for films starring his wife,
Norma Talmadge, his sister-in-law,
Constance Talmadge, and his brother-in-law,
Buster Keaton. Contracts were signed with a letter of independent producers, especially
Samuel Goldwyn,
Alexander Korda and
Howard Hughes. Schenck also formed a separate partnership with Pickford and Chaplin to buy and build theaters under the United Artists name.
Still, even with a broadening of the company, UA struggled. The
coming of sound ended the careers of Pickford and Fairbanks. Chaplin, rich enough to do what he pleased, worked only occasionally. Schenck resigned in 1933 to organize a new company with
Darryl F. Zanuck,
Twentieth Century Pictures, which soon provided four pictures a year to UA's schedule. He was replaced as president by sales manager
Al Lichtman who himself resigned after only a few months. Pickford produced a few films, and at various times Goldwyn, Korda,
Walt Disney,
Walter Wanger, and
David O. Selznick were made "producing partners" (i.e., sharing in the profits), but ownership still rested with the founders. As the years passed and the dynamics of the business changed, these "producing partners" drifted away. Goldwyn and Disney left for
RKO, Wanger for
Universal Pictures, and Selznick for
retirement. By the late 1940s, United Artists had virtually ceased to exist as either a producer or distributor.
The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers
In 1941, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney,
Orson Welles, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick, Alexander Korda, and Walter Wanger—many of the same people who were members of United Artists—founded the
Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers. Later members included
William Cagney,
Sol Lesser, and
Hal Roach. The Society aimed to preserve the rights of independent producers in an industry overwhelmingly controlled by the studio system. SIMPP fought to end
monopolistic practices by the five major Hollywood studios which controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of films.
In 1942, the SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's
United Detroit Theatres. The complaint accused Paramount of conspiracy to control first-run and subsequent-run theaters in Detroit. It was the first antitrust suit brought by producers against exhibitors alleging monopoly and restraint of trade.
In 1948, the
United States Supreme Court Paramount Decision ordered the Hollywood
movie studios to sell their theater chains and to eliminate certain anti-competitive practices. This effectively brought an end to the studio system of
Hollywood's Golden Age.
By 1958, many of the reasons for creating the SIMPP had been corrected and SIMPP closed its offices.
Low-budget films
The efforts of the SIMPP and the advent of inexpensive portable cameras during
World War II effectively made it possible for any person in America with an interest in making films to write, produce, and direct one without the aide of any
major film studio. These circumstances soon resulted in a number of critically acclimed and highly influential works, including
Maya Deren's
Meshes of the Afternoon in 1943, Kenneth Anger's
Fireworks in 1947, and
Raymond Abrashkin's
Little Fugitive in 1953. Filmmakers such as
Ken Jacobs with little or no formal training began to experiment with new ways of making and shooting films.
Little Fugitive became the first independent film to be nominated for
Best Picture at the American
Academy Awards. It also received Silver Lion at
Venice. Both Abrashkin and Anger's films won acclaim overseas from the burgeoning
French New Wave, with
Fireworks inspiring praise and an invitation to study under him in Europe from
Jean Cocteau, and
François Truffaut citing
Little Fugitive as an essential inspiration to his seminal work,
The 400 Blows.
Unlike the films of the collapsing studio system, these new
low-budget films could afford to take risks and explore new artistic territory outside of the classical Hollywood narrative. Maya Deren was soon joined in New York by a crowd of like minded
avant-garde filmmakers who were interested in creating
films as works of art rather than entertainment. Based upon a common belief that the "official cinema" was "running out of breath" and had become "morally corrupt, aesthetically obsolete, thematically superficial,
[1] temperamentally boring,"
[History], this new crop of independents formed
The Film-Makers' Cooperative, an artist-run, non-profit organization which they would use to distribute their films through a centralized archive. Founded in 1962 by
Jonas Mekas,
Stan Brakhage,
Shirley Clarke,
Gregory Markopoulos, and others, the Cooperative provided an important outlet for many of cinemas creative luminaries in the 1960s, including
Jack Smith and
Andy Warhol. When he returned to America, Ken Anger would debut many of his most important works there. Mekas and Brakhage would go on to found the
Anthology Film Archives in 1970, which would likewise prove essential to the development and preservation of independent films, even to this day.
The exploitation boom and the MPAA rating system
Not all low budget films existed as non-commercial art ventures. The success of films like
Little Fugitive, which had been made with low (or sometimes
non-existent) budgets encouraged a huge boom in popularity for non-studio films. Low budget film making promised exponentially greater returns if the film could have a successful run in the theaters. During this time, independent producer/director
Roger Corman began a sweeping body of work that would become legendary for its frugality and grueling shooting schedule. Until his so-called "retirement" as a director in 1971 (he continued to produce films even after this date) he would produce up to seven movies a year, matching (and exceeding) the five a year schedule that the executives at United Artists had once thought impossible.
Like those of the avante-garde, the films of Roger Corman took advantage of the fact that unlike the studio system, independent films had never been bound by its self-imposed
production code. Corman's example (and that of others like him) would help start a
boom in independent B-movies in the 1960s, the principle aim of which was to bring in the
youth market which the major studios had lost touch with. By promising
sex, wanton
violence,
drug use, and
nudity, these films hoped to draw audiences to independent theaters by offering to show them what the major studios could not.
Horror and
science fiction films experienced a period of tremendous growth during this time. As these tiny producers, theaters, and distributors continued to attempt to undercut one another, the B-grade shlock film soon fell to the level of the
Z movie, a niche category of films with production values so low that they became a spectacle in their own right. The
cult audiences these pictures attracted soon made them ideal candidates for
midnight movie screenings revolving around
audience participation and
cosplay.
In 1968, a young filmmaker named
George Romero shocked audiences with
Night of the Living Dead, a new kind of intense and unforgiving independent horror film. This film was released just after the abandonment of the production code, but before the adoption of the
MPAA rating system. As such, it was the first and last film of its kind to enjoy a completely unrestricted screening, in which young children were able to witness Romero's new brand of highly realistic gore. This film would help to set the climate of independent horror for decades to come, as films like
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in 1974 and
Cannibal Holocaust in 1980 continued to push the envelope.
With the production code abandoned and violent and disturbing films like Romero's gaining popularity, Hollywood opted to placate the uneasy filmgoing public with the MPAA ratings system, which would place restrictions on ticket sales to young people. Unlike the production code, this rating system posed a threat to independent films in that it would affect the number of tickets they could sell and cut into the
grindhouse cinema's share of the youth market. This change would further widen the divide between commercial and non-commercial films.
New Hollywood and independent filmmaking
Following the advent of
television and the Paramount Case, the major studios attempted to lure audiences with spectacle.
Screen gimmicks,
Widescreen processes and technical improvements, such as
Cinemascope,
stereo sound,
3-D and others, were invented in order to retain the dwindling audience by giving them a larger-than-life experience.
The 1950s and early 60s saw a Hollywood dominated by musicals, historical epics, and other films which benefited from these advances. This proved commercially viable during most of the 1950s. However, by the late Sixties, audience share was dwindling at an alarming rate. Several costly flops, including
Cleopatra and
Hello, Dolly! put severe strain on the studios. Meanwhile, in 1951, lawyers-turned-producers
Arthur Krim and
Robert Benjamin had made a deal with the remaining stockholders of United Artists which would allow them to make an attempt to revive the company and, if the attempt was successful, buy it after five years. The attempt was a success, and in 1955 United Artists became the first "studio" without an actual studio. UA leased space at the Pickford/Fairbanks Studio, but did not own a studio lot as such. Because of this, many of their films would be shot on location. Primarily acting as bankers, they offered money to independent producers. Thus UA did not have the overhead, the maintenance or the expensive production staff which ran up costs at other studios. UA went public in 1956, and as the other mainstream studios fell into decline, UA prospered, adding relationships with the
Mirisch brothers,
Billy Wilder,
Joseph E. Levine and others.
By the mid 1960s, RKO had collapsed completely, and the remaining four of big five had recognized that they did not know how to reach the youth audience. Foreign films, especially
European and
Japanese cinema, were experiencing a major boom in popularity with young people, who were interested in seeing films with non-traditional subjects and narrative structures. An added draw for such films was that they, like the American independents, were unencumbered by the production code. In an attempt to capture this audience, the Studios hired a host of young filmmakers (many of whom were mentored by Roger Corman) and allowed them to make their films with relatively little studio control.
In 1967, Warner Bothers offered first-time producer
Warren Beatty 40% of the gross on his film
Bonnie & Clyde instead of a minimal fee. The movie proceeded to gross over $70 million world-wide by 1973. This initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to the
film school generation and began what the media dubbed "
New Hollywood."
On
May 16,
1969,
Dennis Hopper, a young American filmmaker, wrote, directed, and acted in his first film,
Easy Rider. Along with his producer/star/co-writer
Peter Fonda, Hopper was responsible for the first completely independent film of New Hollywood.
Easy Rider debuted at
Cannes and garnered the "
First Film Award," ("Prix de la premiere oeuvre") after which it received two Oscar nominations, one for best original screenplay and one for Corman-alum
Jack Nicholson's breakthrough performance in the supporting role of George Hanson, an
alcoholic lawyer for the
ACLU.
Following on the heels of Easy Rider just over a week later, the revived United Artists'
Midnight Cowboy, which, like
Easy Rider, took numerous cues from Ken Anger and his influences in the French New Wave, became the first and only
X rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture.
Midnight Cowboy also held the distinction of featuring
cameo roles by many of the top
Warhol superstars, who had already become symbols of the militantly anti-Hollywood climate of NYC's independent film community.
Within a month, another young Corman trainee,
Francis Ford Coppola, made his debut in
Spain at the
Donostia-San Sebastian International Film Festival with
The Rain People, a film he had founded his own studio,
American Zoetrope, to make a reality. Though
The Rain People was largely overlooked by American audiences, Zoetrope would became a powerful force in New Hollywood. Through Zoetrope, Coppola formed a distribution agreement with studio giant, Warner Bros., which he would exploit to achieve wide releases for his films without making himself subject to the controlling forces of Hollywood.
These three films provided the major Hollywood studios with both an example to follow and a new crop of talent to draw from. In 1971, Zoetrope co-founder
George Lucas made his feature film debut with
THX 1138, also released by Zoetrope through their deal with Warner Bros., announcing himself as another major talent of New Hollywood. By the following year, the leaders of the New Hollywood revolution had made enough of a name for themselves that Coppola was able to convince Paramount to fund his multi-generational
gangster epic,
The Godfather. Meanwhile Lucas had obtained studio funding for
American Graffiti from Universal.
In the mid-1970s, the major Hollywood studios continued to tap these new filmmakers for both ideas and personnel, producing idiosyncratic, startling original films such as
Paper Moon,
Dog Day Afternoon and
Taxi Driver, all of which were met with enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
It can often seem that all members of the New Hollywood generation were independent filmmakers. Though those mentioned above began with a considerable claim on the title, almost all of the major films commonly associated with the movement were studio projects. The New Hollywood generation soon became firmly entrenched in a revived incarnation of the studio system, which financed the development, production and distribution of their films. Very few of these filmmakers ever independently financed or independently released a film of their own, or ever worked on an independently financed production during the height of the generation's influence. Seemingly independent films such as
Taxi Driver,
The Last Picture Show and others were studio films: the scripts were based on studio pitches and subsequently paid for by the studios, the production financing was from the studio, and the marketing and distribution of the films were designed and controlled by the studio. Though Coppola made considerable efforts to resist the influence of the studios, opting to finance his risky 1979 film
Apocalypse Now himself rather than compromise with skeptical studio executives, he, and filmmakers like him, had saved the old studios from financial ruin by providing them with a new formula for success.
Indeed, it was during this period that the very definition of an independent film became blurred. Though
Midnight Cowboy was financed by United Artists, the company was certainly a studio. Likewise, Zoetrope was another "independent studio" which worked within the system to make a space for independent directors who needed funding. George Lucas would leave Zoetrope in 1977 to create his own independent studio,
Lucasfilm, which would produce the
blockbuster Star Wars and
Indiana Jones trilogies. In fact, the only two movies of the movement which can be described as uncompromisingly independent are
Easy Rider at the beginning, and
Peter Bogdanovich's
They All Laughed, at the end.
Peter Bogdanovich bought back the rights from the studio to his 1980 film and paid for its distribution out of his own pocket, convinced that the picture was better than what the studio believed — he eventually went bankrupt because of this.
In retrospect, it can be seen that
Steven Spielberg's
Jaws (1975) and
George Lucas's
Star Wars (1977) marked the beginning of the end for the New Hollywood. With their unprecedented box-office successes, these movies jump-started Hollywood's blockbuster mentality, giving studios a new paradigm as to how to make money in this changing commercial landscape. The focus on
high-concept premises, with greater concentration on tie-in merchandise (such as toys), spin-offs into other media (such as soundtracks), and the use of sequels (which had been made more respectable by Coppola's
The Godfather Part II), all showed the studios how to make money in the new environment.
On realizing how much money could potentially be made in films, major
corporations started buying up the remaining Hollywood studios, saving them from the oblivion which befell RKO in the 50s. The corporate mentality these companies brought to the filmmaking business would slowly squeeze out the more idiosyncratic of these young filmmakers, while ensconcing the more malleable and commercially successful of them. Like the original independents who fled the Edison Trust to form old Hollywood, the young film school graduates who had fled the studios to explore on-location shooting and dynamic,
neo-realist styles and structures ended up replacing the tyrants they had sought to dislodge with a more stable and all-pervasive base of power.
Outside of Hollywood
Though many of the thematic changes which would resound through the American cinema of the 1970s would prominently feature heightened depictions of realistic sex and violence, those directors who wished to reach the audience which the old Hollywood once had quickly learned to stylize these actions in a way that made them appealing and attractive, rather than repulsive or obscene. However, at the same time that the maverick film students who would become the American new wave were developing the skills they would use to take over Hollywood, many of their classmates had begun to develop in a different direction. Influenced by foreign "art house" directors, (such as
Ingmar Bergman and
Federico Fellini) exploitation shockers (including
Joseph P. Mawra) and those who walked the line between, (
Kenneth Anger et al) a number of young film makers began to experiment with transgression not as a box-office draw, but
as an artistic act. Directors such as
John Waters and
David Lynch would make a name for themselves by the early 70s for the bizarre and often disturbing imagery which characterized their films.
When Lynch's first feature film, 1977's
Eraserhead, brought Lynch to the attention of producer
Mel Brooks, he soon found himself in charge of the $5 million film
The Elephant Man for Paramount. Though
Eraserhead was strictly an out-of-pocket, no-budget, independent film, Lynch made the transition with unprecedented grace. The film was a huge commercial success, and earned eight
Academy Award nominations, including
Best Director and
Best Adapted Screenplay nods for Lynch. It also established his place as a commercially viable, if somewhat dark and unconventional,
Hollywood director. Seeing Lynch as a fellow studio convert,
George Lucas, a fan of
Eraserhead and now the darling of the studios, offered Lynch the opportunity to direct his next
Star Wars sequel,
Return of the Jedi. However, Lynch had seen what had happened to Lucas and his comrades in arms after their failed attempt to do away with the studio system. He refused the opportunity, stating that he would rather work on his own projects.
[2]
Lynch instead chose to direct a big budget adaptation of
Frank Herbert's
science fiction novel Dune for
Italian producer
Dino De Laurentiis's
De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, on the condition that the company release a second Lynch project, over which the director would have complete creative control. Although De Laurentiis hoped it would be the next
Star Wars, Lynch's
Dune (1984) was a critical and commercial dud, costing $45 million to make, and grossing a mere $27.4 million domestically. The producer was furious that he would now be forced to allow Lynch to make any kind of film he wanted. He offered Lynch only $6 million, reasoning that it would be best to let it be a small flop and be rid of the director. However, the film was a resounding success. Lynch subsequently returned to his independent roots, and did not work with another major studio for over a decade.
John Waters, on the other hand, proved too hot to handle for the major studios. Distributing his films locally though a production company of his own creation known as
Dreamland Productions, Waters defied the mainstream completely until the early 80s, when the fledgling
New Line Cinema agreed to work with him on
Polyester. During the 80s, Waters would become a pillar of the New York based independent film movement known as the "
Cinema of Transgression," a term coined by
Nick Zedd in 1985 to describe a loose-knit group of like-minded New York artists using
shock value and
humor in their work. Other key players in this movement included
Kembra Pfahler,
Casandra Stark,
Beth B,
Tommy Turner,
Richard Kern and
Lydia Lunch. Rallying around such institutions as the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives, this new generation of independents devoted themselves to the defiance of the now-establishment New Hollywood, proposing that "all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again."
[3]
The Sundance Institute
In 1978, Sterling Van Wagenen and
Charles Gary Allison, with Chairperson
Robert Redford, (veteran of New Hollywood and star of
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) founded the
Utah/US Film Festival in an effort to attract more filmmakers to Utah and showcase what the potential of independent film could be. At the time, the main focus of the event was to present a series of retrospective films and filmmaker panel discussions; however it also included a small program of new independent films. The jury of the 1978 festival was headed by
Gary Allison, and included
Verna Fields,
Linwood Gale Dunn,
Katherine Ross,
Charles E. Sellier Jr.,
Mark Rydell, and
Anthea Sylbert.
In 1981, the same year that United Artists, bought out by MGM, ceased to exist as a venue for independent filmmakers, Sterling Van Wagenen left the film festival to help found the
Sundance Institute with Robert Redford. In 1985, the now well-established Sundance Institute, headed by Sterling Van Wagenen, took over management of the US Film Festival, which was experiencing financial difficulties.
Gary Beer and Sterling Van Wagenen spearheaded production of the inaugural Sundance Film Festival which included Program Director
Tony Safford and Administrative Director
Jenny Walz Selby.
In 1991, the festival was officially renamed the
Sundance Film Festival, after Redford's famous role as
The Sundance Kid.
. Through this festival, such notable figures as
Kevin Smith,
Robert Rodriguez,
Quentin Tarantino,
Paul Thomas Anderson,
Steven Soderbergh,
James Wan and
Jim Jarmusch garnered resounding critical acclaim and unprecedented box office sales. In 2005, about 15% of the
U.S. domestic
box office revenue was from independent studios.
[MPAA data from January to March 2005]
Present day and digital filmmaking
Today, due to the large volume of inexpensive, high end digital film equipment available at the consumer level, independent filmmakers are no longer dependent on major studios to provide them with the tools they need to produce a film. Post production has also been simplified by
non-linear editing software available for
home computers. While most of the current U.S. film industry is located in
Los Angeles, one-third of all independent films in the U.S. are still produced in New York City, where the first independent filmmakers began the resistance to the Edison Trust.
Presently, all five of the Golden Age majors continue to exist as major Hollywood studio entities through 2008. Their output is still marked by familiar stories and conservative choices in cast and crew. Companies such as
Lucasfilm continue to exist, co-financing their productions and partnering with Big Six studios for distribution. In fact, co-financing has become a growing trend in modern day Hollywood, with over two-thirds of the films put out by Warner Bros. in 2000 being funded as joint ventures, up from 10% in 1987.
[Sharing Pix is Risky Business variety.com. Retrieved June 23, 2007.]
In an effort to cash in on the present day boom in independent film, today's Big Six major studios, have created a number of independent-flavored subsidiaries, designed to develop less commercial, more character driven films which appeal to the growing art house market. These include MGM, UA (under MGM), New Line Cinema,
HBO Films,
Castle Rock Entertainment,
DreamWorks SKG,
Sony Pictures Classics,
Fox Searchlight,
Miramax Films,
Warner Independent,
Picturehouse,
Paramount Classics/
Paramount Vantage,
Go Fish Pictures (under DreamWorks),
Focus Features,
Screen Gems,
TriStar Pictures,
Destination Films,
Fox Faith,
Fox Atomic,
Hollywood Pictures, and
Rogue Pictures.
The increasing popularity and feasibility of low-budget films over the last 15 years has led to a vast increase in the number of aspiring filmmakers -- people who have written
spec scripts and who hope to find several million dollars to turn that script into an independent film sensation like
Reservoir Dogs, Little Miss Sunshine, or
Juno. These aspiring filmmakers often work day-jobs while they pitch their scripts to independent film production companies, talent agents, and wealthy investors. Their dream seems much more attainable than before the independent film revolution because these novice filmmakers no longer need to gain the backing of a major studio and access to perhaps a hundred million dollars to make their film. (See the filmmaking documentary
Dreams on Spec)
Independent movie-making has also resulted in the proliferation and repopularization of
short films and
short film festivals. Full-length films are often showcased at
film festivals such as the
Sundance Film Festival, the
Slamdance Film Festival, the
South By Southwest film festival, the
Raindance Film Festival,
ACE Film Festival, or the
Cannes Film Festival. Award winners from these exhibitions are more likely to get picked up for distribution by major film studios.
The following studios are considered to be the most prevalent of the modern independent studios (they are used to produce/release independent films and foreign-language films in America):
In addition to these higher profile "independent" studios there are thousands of smaller production companies that produce authentic independent films every year. These smaller companies look to regionally release their films theatrically or for additional financing and resources to distribute, advertise and exhibit their project on a national scale. The
direct-to-video market is not often noted as artistically fertile ground but among its many entries are ambitious independent films that either failed to achieve theatrical distribution or did not seek it. Moving forward, particularly as theatrical filming goes digital and distribution eventually follows, the line between "film," direct-to-disc productions, and feature-length videos whose main distribution channel is wholly electronic, should continue to blur.
Technology and independent films today
The independent film scene's development in the 1990s and 2000s has been stimulated by a range of factors, including the development of affordable
digital cinematography cameras that can rival
35 mm film quality and easy-to-use computer editing software.
Until the advent of digital alternatives, the cost of professional film equipment and stock was a major obstacle to independent filmmakers who wanted to make their own films. The cost of
35 mm film is steadily rising: in 2002 alone,
film negative costs were up 23%, according to
Variety.
[Sharing Pix is Risky Business variety.com. Retrieved June 23, 2007.] Studio-quality filming typically required expensive
lighting and
post-production facilities.
But the advent of consumer
camcorders in 1985, and more importantly, the arrival of high-definition
digital video in the early 1990s, have since lowered the technology barrier to movie production considerably. Both production and post-production costs have been significantly lowered; today, the
hardware and
software for post-production can be installed in a commodity-based
personal computer. Technologies such as
DVD,
FireWire connections and professional-level
non-linear editing system software make movie-making relatively inexpensive.
The first independent film released on
HD DVD was
One Six Right on November 1, 2006.
[ October 4, 2006][ Page 34, Jan/Feb 2007][ AVS.com user forum, March 9, 2007]
Flatland, the first all computer-animated feature film to be created (directed and animated) by one person (Ladd Ehlinger Jr.) was released in 2007.
Popular software (including commercial, consumer level and
open source) includes:
Mac OS X
Windows
Linux
Popular digital camcorders, mostly semi-professional equipment with 3-
CCD technology, include:
Most of these camcorders cost between
US$2,000–$5,000 in 2003, with costs continuing to decline as features are subtracted, and as models depreciate. Additionally,
open source software holds the potential for increasing high-level editing capabilities being available for also increasingly lower prices, both for free and paid software.
Further reading
See also
